


Revelations

by PenShips



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 08:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8395021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenShips/pseuds/PenShips
Summary: A little fluffy throwback piece to how Barry should have been upfront and honest with Iris about his powers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a piece already posted on my blog (literally two years ago, someone hold me). I wanted to get it under an account and on a site that would make it easy to search for. Enjoy! :)

The middle of nowhere. That was where Barry had told her to meet him. The text had come late at night as she was trying in vain to fall asleep. For days she’d been trying to find information about the red streak helping civilians around the city and more often than not she came up with nothing. It had been weighing on her heavily. She knew that she wasn’t the greatest journalist there was, the work was tiring and boring but when the end result was as exciting as the red streak, she had to push on through the mundane.

So as she was tossing and turning, her phone went off. A text alert.

_2pm. The abandon airport runway._

_Meet me there. I have something to show you._

That was all it said.

She spent the rest of the night wondering whether or not to text Barry back. He was rarely ever so vague and so forceful. Instead, she was content to simply lie there and think of things Barry wanted to tell her. Nothing came.

And standing in the middle of an old airport runway, miles of abandoned space stretching out before her, Iris West still could not come up with a good explanation as to why Barry would ask her to meet him here. She sighed loudly. Her feet were tiring easily and her patience was running thin. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea to wear high heeled shoes. They had matched her outfit perfectly though.

Iris marched up the airstrip, hoping the movement would take her mind off the ache in her feet. Grass and weeds had cracked the tarmac throughout and small patches of areas were completely overgrown. For moment, she’d thought she spotted a snail in one of the patches and recoiled. Only to see a centipede resting in the shade of a blade of grass, Iris bit back a squeal. A city girl, through and through, that’s what she was. She never had tolerance or love for the outdoors.

Turning on her heel, she made a beeline for the exit. It was now two thirty and she was hell-bent on finding Barry. If coming here was some stupid prank she was going to kick his ass. Just as she was thinking up ways to make Barry suffer, she saw his figure in the distance.

As his blurred shape became clearer, she could see that he had on his work clothes. An obvious hold up at the office, she thought as she waved at him. He waved back but was too far away for her to see his features. Iris hated the knot that formed in her stomach at the thought of him. It had been happening more recently and she dreaded to think what it meant. Barry was her brother and she was dating Eddie. Nothing else should be said on the topic.

‘Hey,’ she said as he finally approached her. ‘What took you so long?’

He looked so stressed that she almost wanted to say that she forgave the hold up. Almost.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he moaned in garbled tones. ‘There was this new case and Captain Singh wanted results immediately and then I had to dodge your father because he knows when I’m lying and he’d be able to guess what I was going to do.’

Her heart contracted, skipping a beat. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘You have to promise me,’ he said, taking a hold of her hand. ‘You have to promise me that you won’t let Joe know about this, okay? It has to stay between us.’

She nodded dumbly, still trying to come up with scenarios but drawing a complete blank. ‘Okay,’ she laughed, nervously. ‘It will stay between us.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Okay,’ he said and then laughed. ‘Okay. Here goes. Are you watching? Good. Watch this.’

Iris raised an eyebrow. Barry stood for a moment in the same spot, twitching-tiny movements in his muscles-before finally moving off. The force of his exit propelled her body backwards and she ended up sprawled on the floor, her mind in a jumble. He was fast. Impossibly fast. Beyond anything any normal human could achieve-

Was Barry Allen, her best friend, an alien? Another species? Was this what he was nervous about telling her?

‘Oh my God!’ she heard him cry out. ‘Are you okay?! I-I didn’t realise…I was so nervous about showing you that I didn’t think about-I’m so sorry!’

She felt an arm underneath hers and was suddenly dragged upwards by Barry, her body resting against his tall, lanky frame as his nimble fingers ran over her body. He was searching for bruises. There was a vague swirling of emotions deep in the pit of her stomach like a tornado uprooting everything in its path without any care of the consequences. A part of her wished it had more to do with what she’d had for dinner the night before than his hands on her. The feeling did not last. Once he was satisfied she was unhurt, he let her go and she was left with an overwhelming sense of guilt and nausea.

‘So you can run…really fast?’

Barry laughed; a sound that made her feel safe. At home. This was still Barry Allen, she knew that for sure. ‘Yeah. I can run really fast. A mile in three seconds!’

‘A mile in three seconds? Whoa.’

He shifted nervously. ‘That’s not the worst part.’

Iris blinked, scanning his face for signs. It exuded the same youthful, boyishness it always did. Once again, she was at a lost. ‘Worst part?’

He was gone in a flash, only to reappear again. This time dressed in a red outfit with a mask covering his head and half of his face. Suddenly it all made sense. The avoidances and odd behaviour. Why he seemed to have a better handle on time. How dismissive he was when she talked about the red streak. It was all so clear.

‘You’re the red streak!’ she exclaimed, unable to stop herself from reaching over and punching him lightly on the arm. ‘You’re the red streak!’

Then she frowned.

‘Hey, do you know how I’ve been busting my ass trying to get an interview with you?! I mean, I don’t need one! I practically grew up with you!’

Barry smiled. ‘Just don’t make anything up, that’s bad journalism, you know?’

She scoffed at him, looping her arm with his as they headed towards the exit. The material felt weird, rubbery and smelt like those action figures Barry had loved to collect when he was little. Iris absentmindedly stroked it, noting that the suit was also incredibly tight. Blushing, she found her gaze wander a little further south that was appropriate.

‘You can’t tell Joe, remember?’ he said.

Jerking her eyes up to his face, she was sure that she’d been caught but Barry had been staring off into the distance. His mouth downturned and eyebrows furrowed. She’d always told him if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up with a wrinkled forehead early in life.

‘I won’t spill your secret to my dad, relax.’

He scratched the back of his neck. ‘Umm…actually, Joe kind of already knows.’

Of course, he did. Why wasn’t she surprised? Iris loved her father, she really did but sometimes he could be overprotective. He should know that she was no longer a little girl. Frankly, it had past the point of cute protective dad and was now bordering on annoying.

‘I’m going to kill him! I will…,’ she paused, the look from Barry cutting her short from her rant. ‘I can’t say anything to him, can I?’

He nodded. ‘No, otherwise I’m dead.’

Smiling at his humour, Iris knew her father would never really hurt Barry. He loved him like his own son and Barry loved him like a father. It surprised her that he was so quick to disobey Joe. If her father had really asked him to keep his alter ego from her, Barry would have taken that secret to the grave. She reached behind his head and pulled off the mask. She needed to see his face when he answered.

‘Why did you tell me now?’

He ruffled his hair, briefly frowning over her actions before sighing. The silence stretched on for far too long, blending in with the vacant surrounds. She’d never been this far out of the city and there was always some noise to fill the silence-a police siren, a dog barking, cars on the road. She didn’t like this void.

‘Harrison Wells,’ he finally said. ‘It was late last night, Cisco and Caitlin had gone home. We were just talking and I was telling him about you. Good things, don’t worry! I found it hard to be Barry around you when I was also this guy with superpowers. I-I wanted to tell you so bad. So bad. About all of these amazing things that was happening to me but I couldn’t.’

‘Because of my dad,’ she growled.

‘Well yeah, sort of but then Harrison said something that made me think. You’re my best friend and I l-love you. What kind of person would I be, would I become, if I could lie easily to the woman I…the woman who’s my best friend? Sure the lying would be hard but soon it would get easier and easier. I didn’t want that. I-I didn’t want to lie to my best friend and even if it means disobeying Joe, I won’t do it. I won’t lie to one of the few people in my life that I love and trust as much as I love and trust you.’

Iris swallowed, her throat becoming constricted and dry. ‘Well,’ she said, blinking tears forming in her eyes. 'Dr. Wells is going to get a big thank you the next time I see him.’

‘From me too!’ Barry said, a cheeky smile spreading across his face. ‘There is so much I have to show you! So many things I can do.’

‘Like run a mile in three seconds?’ she teased, poking him in the shoulder. She was pleased Barry chose not to comment on her emotional response to his speech. Even she didn’t think she could explain it.

‘Actually, I’m pretty sure I could do it in two,’ he replied, smugly. ‘And I get dressed in four seconds and the world sometimes goes slower but it’s because I’m going really fast and oh, get this! I have to eat so much to maintain my glucose levels. I could eat a hundred donuts and not gain a pound and I’m totally faster than a speeding bullet-it’s like a real matrix vibe. It’s so cool and you should see me…’

His voice trailed off but she continued to nod along with him and smile at the right moments. She understood now. She finally understood the finality of this meeting with Barry. Everything was different now. Everything was going to change. For the better or the worst, Iris wasn’t sure but she knew one thing. She was always going to stay by Barry’s side.


End file.
